An electromagnetic (EM) transceiver system can be thought of as having a front-end for receiving and transmitting signals within an EM spectrum and a back-end for generating instructions for the front-end and for analyzing the signals. The front-end may comprise a plurality of EM resources such as receivers, transmitters, and transceivers which transmit or receive as instructed. Radio frequency is a subset of the electromagnetic spectrum which includes infrared, visible, and ultraviolet light. EM resources are constrained by their power capacity and may comprise additional constraints such as filtering capabilities and so on. Transceivers may have a plurality of selectable channels, each channel optionally including a matched filter and amplifier, that are switched in and out.
EM systems such as communications systems have utility in medical environments, telecommunications environments, emergency response systems, military environments, and in any other environments in which multiple transceivers may communicate simultaneously in a common signals space. Such systems dynamically allocate narrow bands of the space to maximize the amount of signal traffic to respond to changes in the number and types of signals. The narrow bands are often described as communication channels. Allocations may also change to give certain signals priority over others, to preserve some bands for emergency responders, to mitigate interference between signals, based on the capacity of each resource, and for many other reasons.
Traditional resource assignment or allocation methods are limited. Methods that allocate resources to preserve a portion of the signal space for priority calls underutilize the preserved space. Methods that assign channels on a first-come-first-served basis and maintain the channels until traffic in the channels ends, at which time the channels may be re-assigned, may under-serve priority signals. New methods are needed which assign resources to maximize a desired response function on a near real-time basis.